Impressed?

We’ve gotten so used to the idea that we often fail to be stunned by it, but consider for a moment that God chose to come to us, to walk on the earth with us, to let us see glimpse after glimpse of what was going on in the chest of His dad. 

It is an astounding thing that the weight of a man with the heart, spirit, and passion of heaven left an impression in the soil of earth.  He was here, and He has left us with much to examine of what He said and did.  But He isn’t an artifact that is only ancient; He lives still and continues to let us in on the story.  

Good Things Formed

When busyness has consumed us again—and it may be the mental schedule that is full even if the actual schedule is not—we are wise to pause.  Remember that the bottom line is not us.  Though we certainly have a part in what unfolds, and choices to make, He is the one who reigns. 

“Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures through all generations.”  Psalm 145:13

Lay down the burden that is weighing on you.  But don’t just shed it in some random place where it is so easy to hunt it back down  to pick it up again if worry about it stirs.  When we lay it down, it is by placing it into His hands, giving Him possession of our care.  He may ask something of us in responding to the need or concern, but the point is that we’ve acknowledged that it is in His care and attention, that we see Him as having charge over it.  We become as one who is not Director of it, but directed in it by the words of the Master Director. 

 See what good thing will be formed as you place the need into His hands.  

Waiting with Perseverance

Yesterday morning as I passed the pond on my way to church, there stood on the ice that still covered over half of the pond, a Canada Goose looking somewhat puzzled, it’s head turning from side to side as if looking for an answer. 

It seemed apparent that either the ice needed to melt or the barrier needed to break.  The goose needed to be in the water.  The ice stood in the way. 

In the natural, the temperatures will warm and by later today, it is likely that the surface of the whole pond will be water again.  In the spiritual, it seems that things sometimes are locked down far longer than when it seems that something should have shifted.  “Lord, this has been a very long journey…”

This I know, looking back over many times when things seemed stuck:  God is active.  We are to both wait for His timing and pray it forth.  I have gained much by trying to listen for the Spirit’s leading in how to pray.  Often He gives me prayers that I know I did not conceive, but it has been my privilege to pray them, being aware that He had given oil for the rusty hinges so doors could open. 

My prayer for myself and for you today is this:  “God, let our hearts and ears hear Your divine guidance to pray forward the circumstances in our lives that we and you care deeply about.  You are not absent or unmindful or inactive in regard to them.  Let our hearts swell with confidence in Your best work. and in Your timing, and may we press on to not be discouraged, but to keep listening for how to pray.  Help us, Lord, to wait for breakthroughs and victory with joy and perseverance, that none of what concerns us has been forgotten by You.”  

Meet Ken

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSgW6Vku0oo

I "met" Ken this week through some videos and writings and music of what has been birthed through his heart and life.  There is a sweetness and openness that is beautiful and I couldn't think of anything better to share with you on this Sabbath morning.

Song of Solomon 2

It's about to happen.  Many of you are going to witness a miracle.  It will be a big one and everyone will be talking about it. 

The land that has been covered by layers of snow and frozen in cold is going to warm up and turn green and sprout the most amazing blooms.  Color will burst forth and be draped everywhere.  Barren trees will be dressed up in garments that move beautifully in the breeze.  The birds will arrive and sing the celebration songs and nest within the safety of them like a child in the folds of her mother’s skirts.  Daylight hours will lengthen so you can to be out there to watch it all unfurl and breathe it deeply in. 

Of course this happens every year, and if you live in an area within the temperate climate latitudes you experience it annually.  Still, this spring, don’t take for granted the amazing change you are about to witness as life bursts from what had seemed dead for months.

Take some time to really appreciate it.  Let this rapid transformation fill you with hope in the God of resurrection and restoration as you watch life come forth from the tomb of winter’s white robes before your very eyes. 

It’s one of the best revelations of God’s intent and plan and power.

 

Freedom By Connection

The Brazilian worship leader was lying on the floor. “Respond to the Lord!  Respond to the Lord!” she moaned.  My first thought was to step it up a notch so she could calm down, but I knew this moment was about more than the awkwardness of a different style of worship.  I knew little about this woman, but enough to understand that God was probably speaking to us through her open heart.  And so my prayer began. 

“God, I feel like I came in pretty good shape with You this weekend.  If there’s somewhere You want me to go, I don’t know how to get there.  Will You show me?” 

Immediately a vision began.  Jesus was on one side of the street; I was on the other.  He looked at me and said, “Come to me.”  As I began to cross the street He held out His hands and said, “Come play with me.”  And at that moment, standing in the midst of a bunch of women at a weekend conference, my life changed forever.  The vision went briefly.  Jesus and I were running to the outskirts of the small western town setting.  We played in creeks, splashing in water, walking over stones.  We ended up in a meadow, and the simple dance He did with a now four-year-old version of me, looking in the eye with such delight that I have never forgotten it. 

The vision ended.  Christy continued into the song she was singing on the platform.  The women around me stood there, having no idea that a life had just been transformed. 

Although I had been a Christian at that point for 26 years, I finally understood that the God of heaven so deeply and simply just wants a relationship with us.  I saw it in His eyes.  For all the foundations we sort out and stand on, for all the programs we organize and try to implement, for all the good things we can do, for all the practices we develop and try to maintain (all of which are part of what He calls us into), let’s not miss the heart of the matter. 

The God of the universe loves us to levels we cannot imagine.  He thought up each of us.  He created us.  He set us in a time and place and put gifts in us that would take our simple lives to places of His wildest dreams.  We’ve gotten derailed, but He sent His Son to do everything in Heaven’s power to make the way so we could function and be free to love and follow Him, to live out the possibilities of all He imagined.  But we too easily reduce it to rules and formats and forget that it cannot occur at all unless we are in love with this Son of His and sense His love for us. 

“Come play with me.”  If your perspective is that time with Him is another pressure of your endless to-do list, maybe you too can just tell Him, “I don’t know how to get there; will You show me?”  And then give Him a little listening time to see what He might have to say to you. 

I love order.  I have expectations.  I can be a stick in the mud.  I believe that He has ways of us doing life that are for our good, and warns us about things that will harm us.  I try to live well.  AND, I know how easily I can shift the good things He’s set to something more rigid and less life-filled than He desired.  The only hope I have is to get to know Him, to be influenced moment by moment by the Spirit He’s sent to live in me to keep me company and to guide me.  To hang out with the amazing Trinity and see what they do when they get their plan in motion and the life they are breaking forth in and for and through us. 

“Come play with me.”  Young birds, the door of the cage is open now.  You are free to fly. You are free to come out and see what happens as you explore where He wants to lead you.  “Come play WITH me.”  We don’t get the freedom when we grab it and run.  It is freedom when it is connected to His glorious life. 

 

Surrounded and Helped

For the unsettled things, the difficult situations, the heartache, the wounds, the questions that seem to have no answers in this moment, and all the “not yets,” we have a God who is near, and who will guide.  Follow Him as best you know how.  Keep asking for wisdom.  Walk courageously where He calls you, and know that for all you don’t know how to do, He holds this world and all the details of your life close, in tenderness and strength, and will be faithful and sovereign over and through it as you offer it to Him.  We have so much to learn in living out this call to love.  Don’t give up the quest to figure out how to flesh it out.   It isn’t easy.  Good things rarely are. 

We desperately need help.  We have a Helper.